5 ms·

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not bo

by throwaway201103 6y ago

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benefited helped perpetuate this, but it got started at the time with widespread public support.

Judgmentality 6y ago
I really hate to sidetrack this discussion with an obvious political rant, but it's important to remember the CIA was intimately involved in creating the crack epidemic in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
- ArnoVW 6y ago
  I was intrigued so I read the page. "the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. .. sounds to me like it was investigated and nothing turned up?
  - jowsie 6y ago
    The CIA concluding that the CIA didn't do something and hide it from the public doesn't seem the best way to settle such an issue. They also ruled his death a suicide despite him having 2 bullets in his head. https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/ https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-m...
    - kylebenzle 6y ago
      And Johnny Depp has lost his kids and career to a know liar arguably because of "sentiment". We KNOW Amber Heard is a liar but a court let the nonsense accusation stand. Sometime public sentiment is more important than the truth.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - vips7L 6y ago
    "We investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong."
  - bonestamp2 6y ago
    "...the allegations were unsupported." If one was to read this very carefully, they're not saying it didn't happen, they're just saying the evidence to support the allegations no longer exists. For a top secret program, that sounds about right.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tha0xd 6y ago
  From your source: "These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." It's an uncorroborated conspiracy theory.
pessimizer 6y ago
I was a black teenager living on the South Side of Chicago during that time, and the media crack obsession was largely hysterics, and sometimes outright fiction (as with "crack babies.")
- brodo 6y ago
  Yea, I think experts agree that journalists are almost as much to blame for the war on drugs as politicians. If I remember correctly Johan Hari also writes about this in "Chasing the Scream".
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I think in addition concentrating so much poverty in place amplified how bad it was. In actuality and also in perception.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
post_below 6y ago
What you're describing is the story the media told. The numbers don't support the kind of coverage it got at the time. When you add the race issues, which drove the narrative, policies and policing, there's really no comparison between the crack and opioid crises.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  So even then we could not believe the media? Good to know. And sad to know.
GuB-42 6y ago
It looks like drug laws are bound to become a cycle. 1- Drugs are cool, and not really an issue, people take them mostly reasonably. 2- Hey, drugs can be addictive, that's when people stop being reasonable 3- Too many drug addicts, it is a real society problem 4- People demand strict laws, drugs are not cool anymore 5- Parents, who have seen the damage done by drugs support these drastic laws, and tell their kids how bad drugs are 6- Kids, who didn't experience a real drug epidemic, start questioning what their parents told them, and realize that taken reasonably, drugs are not that bad 7- These kids, now adults, seeing how harsh anti-drug laws do more harm than drugs, demand more tolerance 8- Drug-related legislation softens, back to 1
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Legalization is more about judiciary reform, public health and allocation of resources. We've already been through this before with alcohol, where prohibition was prohibitively expensive, and basically created a completely unregulated market full of products so dangerous they regularly killed people. You can see a parallel with black-market cannabis, where there are basically no health and safety regulations or transparency. So black-market growers are free to use as much carcinogenic pesticide as they wish. On the production side, there is nothing stopping a manufacturer from distributing vape cartridges containing unsafe levels of ethanol, lead contaminated materials, bacterial and fungal contamination. So imagine we set up a system for licensing, independent inspections, regular testing, and Boom, suddenly the drug dealers are paying the state, instead of the state paying to hunt the drug dealers down and keep them alive incarcerated. I am pretty much convinced that Reagan's war on drugs was mostly about destroying south american economies and exterminating or enslaving non-whites, rather than public health and safety. Because of that, I don't believe de-criminalization will lead to criminalization.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    Exactly! Many people don't realise that decriminalisation/legalisation is meant to reduce the drug problem, not "make it legal to be a junkie". The three main points I usually give to people are: - regulating production and distribution will make drugs safer for existing users, - the money from that regulation (taxes, fines...) will go towards education and rehabilitation, - the money and time cops save from not chasing after stoners will go towards catching actual criminals. Add to that the potential medicinal benefits that will be better-studied and available to more people and there's really nothing to lose. DUI is still illegal, as is showing up to work high. Children will of course not be allowed anywhere near drugs and what grown adults do in their free time is really none of anyone else's business.

Judgmentality 6y ago

I really hate to sidetrack this discussion with an obvious political rant, but it's important to remember the CIA was intimately involved in creating the crack epidemic in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...

ArnoVW 6y ago
I was intrigued so I read the page. "the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. .. sounds to me like it was investigated and nothing turned up?
- jowsie 6y ago
  The CIA concluding that the CIA didn't do something and hide it from the public doesn't seem the best way to settle such an issue. They also ruled his death a suicide despite him having 2 bullets in his head. https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/ https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-m...
  - kylebenzle 6y ago
    And Johnny Depp has lost his kids and career to a know liar arguably because of "sentiment". We KNOW Amber Heard is a liar but a court let the nonsense accusation stand. Sometime public sentiment is more important than the truth.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- vips7L 6y ago
  "We investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong."
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  "...the allegations were unsupported." If one was to read this very carefully, they're not saying it didn't happen, they're just saying the evidence to support the allegations no longer exists. For a top secret program, that sounds about right.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tha0xd 6y ago
From your source: "These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." It's an uncorroborated conspiracy theory.

pessimizer 6y ago

I was a black teenager living on the South Side of Chicago during that time, and the media crack obsession was largely hysterics, and sometimes outright fiction (as with "crack babies.")

brodo 6y ago
Yea, I think experts agree that journalists are almost as much to blame for the war on drugs as politicians. If I remember correctly Johan Hari also writes about this in "Chasing the Scream".
nemo44x 6y ago
I think in addition concentrating so much poverty in place amplified how bad it was. In actuality and also in perception.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

post_below 6y ago

What you're describing is the story the media told. The numbers don't support the kind of coverage it got at the time. When you add the race issues, which drove the narrative, policies and policing, there's really no comparison between the crack and opioid crises.

throwaway201103 6y ago
So even then we could not believe the media? Good to know. And sad to know.

GuB-42 6y ago

It looks like drug laws are bound to become a cycle. 1- Drugs are cool, and not really an issue, people take them mostly reasonably. 2- Hey, drugs can be addictive, that's when people stop being reasonable 3- Too many drug addicts, it is a real society problem 4- People demand strict laws, drugs are not cool anymore 5- Parents, who have seen the damage done by drugs support these drastic laws, and tell their kids how bad drugs are 6- Kids, who didn't experience a real drug epidemic, start questioning what their parents told them, and realize that taken reasonably, drugs are not that bad 7- These kids, now adults, seeing how harsh anti-drug laws do more harm than drugs, demand more tolerance 8- Drug-related legislation softens, back to 1

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
Legalization is more about judiciary reform, public health and allocation of resources. We've already been through this before with alcohol, where prohibition was prohibitively expensive, and basically created a completely unregulated market full of products so dangerous they regularly killed people. You can see a parallel with black-market cannabis, where there are basically no health and safety regulations or transparency. So black-market growers are free to use as much carcinogenic pesticide as they wish. On the production side, there is nothing stopping a manufacturer from distributing vape cartridges containing unsafe levels of ethanol, lead contaminated materials, bacterial and fungal contamination. So imagine we set up a system for licensing, independent inspections, regular testing, and Boom, suddenly the drug dealers are paying the state, instead of the state paying to hunt the drug dealers down and keep them alive incarcerated. I am pretty much convinced that Reagan's war on drugs was mostly about destroying south american economies and exterminating or enslaving non-whites, rather than public health and safety. Because of that, I don't believe de-criminalization will lead to criminalization.
- franga2000 6y ago
  Exactly! Many people don't realise that decriminalisation/legalisation is meant to reduce the drug problem, not "make it legal to be a junkie". The three main points I usually give to people are: - regulating production and distribution will make drugs safer for existing users, - the money from that regulation (taxes, fines...) will go towards education and rehabilitation, - the money and time cops save from not chasing after stoners will go towards catching actual criminals. Add to that the potential medicinal benefits that will be better-studied and available to more people and there's really nothing to lose. DUI is still illegal, as is showing up to work high. Children will of course not be allowed anywhere near drugs and what grown adults do in their free time is really none of anyone else's business.